It’s like a dream, this conversation and what happened in the trailer. A dream and nightmare both, the latter because I’m facing head-on all that my sickness cost us. I thought I had dealt with it as much as one could. But it’s sharply bittersweet, knowing he loved me—knowing that maybe I could have salvaged things between us if I had just figured it out sooner.
Blake is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. Chunks of his auburn hair fall over his fingers, and I remember the soft feel of that hair, the scent of his shampoo. I close my eyes.
“I left you,” Blake says, finally breaking the silence trapping both of us, “and it ruined both our lives.”
The old hurt squeezes in my chest, and I can’t help it. “You seemed to move on well enough,” I say, tracing the geometric pattern on the bedspread.
He barks out a humorless laugh, looking up at me. “You mean to the long string of girls who looked like you?”
I know all too well what he’s talking about.That article that lined up all the slim, blond, blue-eyed girlfriends Blake had after me, most of whom were also actresses and driven, strong-willed women. Kim clones, the article had called them. Other piggy-backing articles were less kind—one called them the Kim-bots.
People seemed to think I should be flattered by that, but I took it in a totally different way.
“I read that article,” I say reluctantly, “and I cried. I was sure that all I had been to you was a type, one you kept picking because you thought that’s what you wanted, but could never make you happy.”
“Simone threw thatInTouch Weeklyissue at me when we broke up,” he says, studying his hands before looking back at me. “And yeah, I might have been looking for a type, but that was after our divorce. I was looking foryou. None of the others could ever make me happy because they weren’t you.” He rubs his forehead. “Would have been nice if I had figured that outbeforesomeone made a line-up of all my girlfriends in an entertainment magazine.”
I swallow past a thick lump in my throat at the mention of Simone. He dated her longer than the others. No matter what he said to the press about never re-marrying, I wondered if she’d be the one to change his mind, to undo the misery I’d inflicted on him that made him despise the very concept of marriage.
Except he says he wasn’t miserable.That he wanted to stay married.
“Were you in love with Simone?” I ask. My fingers find a stray thread on the comforter, and I pick at it, trying as best I can to brace myself for the answer.
But Blake shakes his head. “No. I cared about her, and I was closer to her than I was to the others.” He pauses. “You want to hear why we broke up?”
“Peoplereported it was because you were spending too much time apart on different projects.”
He gives me one of those half-smiles. “You believe everything you read about me?”
I shrug. “I tried not to believe any of it, but when there’s a dozen articles talking about how an ‘inside source’ says you’ve fallen in love and are happier than you’ve ever been—”
“Yeah,” he says, “I read those same articles about you.”
He’s got a good point. But somehow it seemed so much easier to believe about him. Because surely he would find someone he could really love. Surely he would be truly happy with someone who didn’t have my problems and constant fears. Someone who wasn’t me.
He gets up from the table and sits on the bed next to me. I want to lean into him so badly I ache with it. But I don’t. I’m not sure what is happening between us, what evencouldhappen between us, and I’m afraid to hope because of how much it’ll hurt if I’m wrong.
“I’d been away filming,” he says. “And I came home, and Simone arranged this nice dinner in. It was supposed to be romantic, I guess.”
I grimace, picturing the gorgeous spread of food on the table, the candles lit. Music playing softly in the background. Simone was supposedly an excellent cook, something I’ve never been. Our romantic dinners in were always takeout. “Do I want to hear this?”
“Yeah, I think you do.” He draws in a deep breath. “So, then you called, something about Ivy’s science fair project, and we talked over what she’d done with you, and what she and I had talked about doing. I don’t even remember what—”
“She was trying to build a rocket,” I say, remembering that night. “I wanted to do a bottle rocket because they don’t go up in flames, but you and she had discussed getting a model rocket engine with actual gunpowder in it.”
“That’s right. And I was on the phone with you for, like, ten minutes.Then I hung up and turned around, and Simone was standing there with this look on her face, and she says to me, ‘You’re still in love with her.’”
My eyes widen. “Over a science project?”
“She said I was happier talking to you for ten minutes about our daughter’s homework than I ever was talking to her.”
I wince. “I’m sorry she broke up with you over that.”
“She didn’t,” he says. “She broke up with me because I wouldn’t deny it.”
My heart pounds. He’s already said he’s still in love with me, that he always has been, but hearing it again . . . “Really?” My voice is barely above a whisper.
He takes my hand, and it feels so good, his fingers warm against mine. “Really.”
